Quietly Furious
by Shattered Midnight Dreams
Summary: Eriol knows that getting to know Tomoyo will be a long and hard journey on a rocky path, and she herself warns him against even attempting it. However, he's willing to try, and whether she likes it or not, she admires him for that. Oneshot.


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The insane musings of the authoress: For once, I don't actually have much to say. Just another little random ficlet from me. It doesn't really have a pairing, but it's ExT if you squint real hard, I think.

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Disclaimer: I don't own CCS.

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Summary: Eriol knows that getting to know Tomoyo will be a long and hard journey on a rocky path, and she herself warns him against even attempting it. However, he's willing to try, and whether she likes it or not, she admires him for that. Oneshot.

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For Lily

Quietly Furious

"How do you feel about this, Daidouji-san?" he asks her. As he speaks, the wind blows in a particularly violent gust against the window, rattling it in the frame. It almost screams, but it's really more like a howl, he muses.

It sounds melancholy, somehow.

She raises and lowers one shoulder elegantly, violet eyes still roaming the music sheets held in pale, delicate fingers. He watches her silently. Those eyes are looking for something else among the notes, he knows. She's not really concentrating on the material in front of her, she couldn't be, the look in her eyes is too distant, too glazed for that.

"Daidouji-san?" he prompts, though he is nervous about doing so. Daidouji-san is not a person to be rushed, and if she decides not to speak, then not a word will pass her lips, and no amount of pressing or provocation would change her mind.

It was one of the things he liked about her - the fact that her mind was not easily changed.

"It's fine, Hiiragizawa-san," she says, and he could have imagined it, but her voice sounds almost… Annoyed? No, it couldn't be, not the permanently unruffled, never fazed Daidouji Tomoyo. The school's resident ice queen, or so he had heard her be called. Hardly apt, he felt, but perhaps he was biased. He had seen her be warm with her friends, after all.

He felt that 'queen of masks' would better befit her - yes, she could be aloof, and in someone as rich and intelligent as she, that could be misinterpreted as being haughty, or thinking of herself as superior to everyone else.

But really, she was just like everyone else - she had her flaws and her weaknesses, she got upset and angry, he was sure. She just didn't like anyone else to know about it.

She liked to pretend that she was stronger than the everyday painful things. He wasn't sure if she fooled everyone, or if they just liked to indulge her.

He just liked to indulge her.

"Really? You seem a little…" What? Well, if he's truthful, he'd say 'pissed off', but somehow he can't bring himself to use that phrase in front of her, never mind suggesting that it links to her. "…annoyed about something."

Tomoyo inhales and exhales deeply.

"And is that any concern of yours?" she asks, and her eyes flicker momentarily from the sheets to rest lightly on his face. The sharp look in them, such a contrast to the hazy, far away look that occupied them before, could bore a hole.

He fakes a casual shrug.

"Is it a crime to enquire on other people's welfare?" he asks, sounding almost challenging.

"It should be, if it's none of your business," she mutters with a fair amount of (misplaced, in his opinion) vehemence. It's quiet, but it's undeniably there.

"Then make it my business. Tell me what's wrong," he suggests. She snorts - hardly a dignified, Tomoyo-like thing to do, but she can't help it. She's made the noise before she manages to make herself stop and think about it.

"That's not likely to happen," she says, flicking a long strand of hair over one shoulder, "can we just get on with this?"

"I might be able to help you," he protests gently. She bangs her fists on the table once, then turns her head sharply to glare at him with purple eyes.

"Look, Hiiragizawa-san, we don't need to talk during this, okay? And I don't your help, or anyone else's."

Oops. Okay, now she's definitely angry. Oh well, he may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, right?

"I never said that you _needed _my help, I just thought you might benefit from it," he says.

She tries very hard not to scream.

She succeeds, somehow.

But can't stop herself from glaring at him even more intensely.

However, Hiiragizawa doesn't wither.

Damn.

"Just drop it, okay? I'm more aggravation than I'm worth - trust me, I know."

He doesn't appear to be listening, if the fact that he's staring serenely out into the rain is any indication.

Tomoyo holds on to her rapidly-thinning patience.

She exhales a few times.

"I'm going home," she announces.

"In that weather?"

His voice is light and pleasant, perhaps forcibly so.

"Yes." It's a challenge, he knows. A challenge to see if he will stop her.

He sighs.

"I wouldn't recommend it, Daidouji-san, but if you are determined to storm out, then I must insist you take my umbrella, at least."

He hears the slam of the door and winces. Then he turns and realises that she hasn't taken the umbrella. He sighs, and wonders why she has to be so difficult.

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She's quite happy walking home through the rain, or so she tells herself. Even though she's wet and cold and she's just stepped into a deep puddle which has overflowed right into her shoes, dampening her socks… And, really, she's miserable.

Then he runs up to her, smiling in that infuriating manner of his. He's holding out his umbrella to her.

"I thought I requested you take this."

She doesn't take it, and doesn't say anything, either.

"There's no point in getting wet when there's an umbrella available to you."

"Oh, and Daidouji-san? I won't give up."

And, before she knows what's going on, he has shoved the umbrella into her hands and disappeared.

Her mouth is open to say something, but he has disappeared so fast that it's too late for her to talk.

Her shoulders slump wearily and she reluctantly puts up the umbrella.

After all, there really was no point in getting wet.

…

-- completed 7:15 P.M. December 29th 2004 --

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A.N. I'm not sure what this is, actually. I always seem to end up saying things like that : -) I got about half-way through it, then gave up on it, then suddenly decided to finish it in a mad flash of inspiration. Not actually sure how wise that was.


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